7 Signs We Are in the End Times

　　The sky is falling!

　　In the old story, a type of parable, Henny Penny is a chicken and not a very intelligent one. An acorn falls on her head, and she concludes the sky must be falling, leading to hysteria.

　　Speaking of the end times carries a certain amount of tension. The Bible speaks of the end of this world and a transition into the New Heaven and New Earth, a redemptive story where the corruption of this world is first exposed in a destructive, dramatic fashion before the next world is fully realized.

　　Passages like Matthew 24 and the book of Revelation read like a fantasy or science fiction novel with epic visions of creatures and beasts. These dramatic scenes have led to erroneous declarations from pastors or supposed prophets about the end drawing nigh within the near future. Those dates have all passed, and we can be skeptical of ideas about the end times.

　　Jesus tells us we won’t know the day or the hour. At the same time, he gives us specific signs the end is coming soon. In the Olivet Discourse of Matthew 24, he lists several and calls these birth pangs like a woman in labor with a child. Painful. Intense. Yet a promise of new life at the end.

　　Many today look at the world around us, see the headlines, and wonder if we’re in the end times. One way or another, we’re getting closer, but we should carefully explore the words of Jesus and how events today might fit his teaching.